Hands-on with Windows 8.1 Preview: Windows 8 done right

Late last month, Microsoft announced a raft of interface changes that Windows 8.1 would introduce. We've been giving them a spin.

As you might guess from the name, Windows 8.1 is an update to (and improvement on) Windows 8. The new user interface introduced in that operating system—the Start screen, touch-friendly "Modern" apps, the charms bar—is retained in Windows 8.1. What we see is a refinement and streamlining of these concepts.

The differences are visible as soon as you log in. In 8.1, the Start screen offers a lot more flexibility over layout and tile sizing. By default, the Weather tile takes advantage of this, using a new double-height tile size to show the forecasts for both today and tomorrow, in addition to the current conditions.

Support for this largest size is optional, and at the moment most apps don't support it. Future updates to built-in apps will extend large tile support; for example, an update to the Mail app will allow it to show a preview of your latest two or three mails. That update isn't included in this preview release.

The default Start screen also includes a bunch of small tiles for Music, Video, Games, and the Camera app.

The combination of the two new tile sizes serves both to make the Start screen a lot more customizable and a lot denser. Even at modest screen resolutions, you'll be able to pack much more information onto the screen, giving quick access to many more apps. This is particularly welcome for desktop apps, which unfortunately still don't support live tiles.

There are a bunch of new background options for the Start screen. Unlike the static abstract images offered in Windows 8, the backgrounds in 8.1 include a number of subtle animations.

For example, the default background, a stylized betta fish (a motif that Microsoft has used for the last few Windows betas) has a number of bubbles coming from the fish's mouth (and yes, this is accurate; although most fish do not produce bubbles since they breathe using gills, betta fish do in fact make bubbles). The bubbles animate slowly. Other backgrounds that Microsoft has demonstrated (but which don't appear to be in this preview) include a dragon that swooshes around as you scroll through the Start screen and robots with whirring cogs.

There are more color combinations allowed for the Start screen, plus new backgrounds.

The backgrounds all have a parallax scrolling effect, putting them some distance "behind" the layer of tiles.

If you don't want any of those background images, there's a new option to use the desktop wallpaper behind the Start screen. The desktop wallpaper is typically very different from the other background images; they remain stylized and abstract, just as in Windows 8. Desktop wallpaper, on the other hand, is often photographic (especially if using the default wallpaper, which loads a daily photograph from Bing).

The effect this has on the Start screen is peculiar. To me, it makes the Start screen feel much less separate from the desktop, providing a sort of visual continuity that doesn't otherwise exist. This is true even if the desktop itself is covered by a window, as it means that at least the coloring is consistent between the two.

I wish that Microsoft had included this option in Windows 8, perhaps even going so far as to make it the default. While it's only a small change, it does something that Windows 8 has thus far struggled to do: it bridges the worlds of the desktop and the Metro environment.

Who owns the Start screen?

The other major change to the Start screen is not something you'll see, but rather something you won't see. In Windows 8, I noted that the question of ownership of the Start screen was odd. Although the tile layout is meant to be personal, installing any new app, whether desktop or Metro, would just dump additional icons onto the screen. This undermined the notion that the Start screen was your tiles, laid out the way you want.

Enlarge/ All apps, using the desktop background. Notice the "new" flags.

That's no longer the case in 8.1. Install a new app and its icon will be stuck in All Apps view. It will only appear on the Start screen itself if you explicitly pin it.

Getting to All Apps has changed to be consistent with Windows Phone; in that (primarily portrait mode) operating system, you swipe from right to left in the tile view to see the listing of all your apps. In Windows 8.1, you swipe from bottom to top to do the same. New apps get flagged to advertise their presence, and there is a set of sorting options if you want something other than an alphabetical view.

One consequence of this swipe action is that the way of interacting with tiles on the Start screen has changed. To customize a tile in Windows 8, you nudged it up or down, and that selected it and let you change its size, unpin it, uninstall it, and so on. That nudge gesture is now gone, with "edit" mode now invoked by the more traditional long press.

While I understand the rationale, some of the fluency of the interface is now lost. Long presses make you stop what you're doing and wait for the operating system to recognize your input. At least they are familiar, as other touch operating systems also use them, so that's a point in their favor.

Improvements to search

One of our biggest criticisms of Windows 8—and far and away the most annoying aspect of it in my own day-to-day usage—is that its search feature broke the usage model that I'd depended on since Windows Vista: hit the Windows key and then start typing. Although Windows 8 does support this style of search, it presented results in an annoying, segregated way, with different sections for programs, files, and settings. Combined with the inconsistent division between these categories, the result was a reduction in usability.

Search in 8.1 has undergone a major revision. First of all, basic search results are now unified, reinstating the convenience of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Starting a search (whether using the charm or the keyboard) no longer covers the screen, either; it just shows a search bar down the right hand side of the screen.

If the results in the list aren't what you want, hit return and you'll get a full-screen results set that culls data from a range of sources. The search provides semi-structured results. Search for a person, for example, and you'll see some brief biographical information, along with a link to the relevant part of the Wikipedia app. Scroll right and you'll get image results, Web hits with previews of the pages, related searches, and so on. Microsoft calls these things "search heroes."

I am old-school with my Web searching. I do it from the browser, and in fact, I visit the homepage of the search engines I use first, not even searching directly from the address bar. As such, I'm not sure whether I'll use this new search feature all that much. But it seems to work well and it looks good. I can see how it would be useful, just as long as it can provide structured search hero results for a wide range of searches.

One further consequence of this is that the top-level Search feature is no longer the preferred approach for contextual, in-app search. Instead, apps should use a magnifying glass icon or similar to support their own search features. I've hated the use of the top-level search for in-app search since day one, so this is a very welcome improvement.

Another major sticking point with Windows 8 was its Metro-style settings app. It was woefully incomplete, forcing touch users to use the desktop to configure various options.

The new settings app, which we took pictures of in our gallery, is a great deal more complete. It's not exhaustive—there are still settings that require the use of the desktop Control Panel—but it now covers a much, much larger proportion of common configuration tasks.

Together, these changes conspire to make Windows 8.1 a better, more consistent operating system. I would argue it's how the OS should have shipped. Except for the Start screen background, none of the stuff I've described so far will do much to excite dedicated desktop users who prefer Windows 7 to 8. Windows 8.1 does bring some improvements for those users. I'll be looking at them later today.

It amazes me they never thought of such simple things before rolling out Windows 8. I hope the rapid development thing keeps going though, this sounds a much less jarring OS to use, if they can bring similar improvements within 12 months I'd be quite happy.

One question though, does this come to ARM tablets too? A tablet that gets updated in this timeframe without reliance on the manufacturer would be pretty good.

If you like the Modern UI Start, that's fine! Nobody wants to take that away from you.

The reality is that a lot of users, especially IT groups, let alone the end users, don't like it.

Windows 8 simply doesn't offer enough to make the upgrade worthwhile.

I actually do like Server 2012. I just don't care at all for the UI. It makes no sense for a server to be geared towards touchscreens, and doesn't add anything to the functionality.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

EDIT: And when you turn on key-forwarding in RDP so that the Windows key gets forwarded to RDP, using the Start Screen in Server 2012 is quite pleasant. I've got a whole bunch of frequently used things like IIS Manager, iisreset.exe, Network Load Balancing Manager pinned to it for easy access. It's more useful than the Start Menu in Windows Server was.

The Start screen may be a "pleasing evolution" over the "old" 8 start screen, but it is still a confusing mess. A computer is a tool. It should be comfortable and easy to use so that I can do what needs to be done then shut down so you can get on with living.

The Start screen may be a "pleasing evolution" over the "old" 8 start screen, but it is still a confusing mess. A computer is a tool. It should be comfortable and easy to use so that I can do what needs to be done then shut down so you can get on with living.

I don't see how. It only has what you want on it, rather explicitly now. Windows Phone works this way and it's marvelous.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

For me, the fact that the start menu isn't full screen is a much bigger deal than it is for you. it does steal APPLICATION focus, but I can keep an eye on things in the background while launching something else. I can keep watching that youtube video on the right and immediately snap the new program I launched to the left. I can follow the flow of an IRC Chatroom while pulling up another program, I don't lose sight of what I was doing, so my thought process isn't interrupted by a fullscreen takeover.

I dislike the start screen for the same reasons I dislike a full-screen advertisement popping up over a webpage I was viewing. it gets in the way of MY Workflow.

Is this an improvement? Perhaps. Certainly for those using touchscreens and mobile devices this is an "upgrade." But the fundamental problem with Windows 8.* is that it's a servant trying to serve two masters. You simply can't design an interface that works for both desktop/non-touchscreen laptop users AND touchscreen/mobile users - the paradigms are simply too far apart. What I was hoping for, and I think many other people were as well, was an approach that allowed the user many more options to choose how they interacted with the OS. I've been using Windows since 3.1 (as well as spending a lot of time in Linux, OS X, etc.) and the underlying flaw in Windows 8 is that its *preferred* approach is no longer "Windows" but "Window" - this is great for mobile users and an absolute PITA to everyone else. This update does very little to remedy that. I only keep a Windows box around for gaming now, and if Microsoft continues down this path (and Valve ever comes out with the SteamBox), my current Windows box will be my last.

If you like the Modern UI Start, that's fine! Nobody wants to take that away from you.

The reality is that a lot of users, especially IT groups, let alone the end users, don't like it.

Windows 8 simply doesn't offer enough to make the upgrade worthwhile.

I actually do like Server 2012. I just don't care at all for the UI. It makes no sense for a server to be geared towards touchscreens, and doesn't add anything to the functionality.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

With the traditional start menu, I can still see things when using it. Chats, videos, tailed log files, whatever.

I don't know about anyone else, but I never use the "all programs" part of the start menu. I keep a small set of things pinned, and I text-search for anything else.

You can now shutdown in less than 4 steps using something called a "Charm". Huge improvement.Judging by the list of Windows 8.1 improvements, Windows 8 is an absolute turd. No wonder despite what the MS faithful thought, firing Steven 'mini Jobs' Sinofsky was the right move.

Shutdown and associated commands should be root options in the start menu/screen. They should not be hackjobbed in as "charms" or behind other elements.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu.

... for you. To call the classic start menu which covers maybe 10% of the screen "functionally full-screen" is drivel.

There is real value in consistency, even if it's an "advanced option" to re-enable the classic start menu. Some of us have grown accustomed to it over the last 18 years.

My biggest problem with the start screen is keyboard support. I choose items from lists using the keyboard instead of the mouse, which I can do very quickly with a short list of text items that are easy to scan. I can't do the same thing with big blocky icons and large text.

You don't have to accept my reasons for "obsessing" over the classic start -- there are plenty of others. I've found a simple, 3rd-party solution and it's not a problem anymore. Just try not to spout ignorance and single-mindedness as some kind of high ground.

If you like the Modern UI Start, that's fine! Nobody wants to take that away from you.

The reality is that a lot of users, especially IT groups, let alone the end users, don't like it.

Windows 8 simply doesn't offer enough to make the upgrade worthwhile.

I actually do like Server 2012. I just don't care at all for the UI. It makes no sense for a server to be geared towards touchscreens, and doesn't add anything to the functionality.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

I would say there is a pretty huge new difference now, in that newly installed apps don't appear in the Start screen at all. You have to discover the All Apps screen (which is slightly easier than it was before) and find them there.

Because you can't see the Start screen and the All Apps screen at the same time, instead of, say, dragging apps from All Apps to the Start screen, you have to pin the app in the All Apps screen, then go to the Start screen and find the new tile and move it. So to get something into the Start screen, you have to do a visual search twice.

I would say there is a pretty huge new difference now, in that newly installed apps don't appear in the Start screen at all. You have to discover the All Apps screen (which is slightly easier than it was before) and find them there.

Is this really the case? Every application I have installed is automatically pinned to my start screen at the far right. It only becomes a problem if you unpin it and need to find it again.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

For me, the fact that the start menu isn't full screen is a much bigger deal than it is for you. it does steal APPLICATION focus, but I can keep an eye on things in the background while launching something else. I can keep watching that youtube video on the right and immediately snap the new program I launched to the left. I can follow the flow of an IRC Chatroom while pulling up another program, I don't lose sight of what I was doing, so my thought process isn't interrupted by a fullscreen takeover.

I dislike the start screen for the same reasons I dislike a full-screen advertisement popping up over a webpage I was viewing. it gets in the way of MY Workflow.

totally. i'm getting right fed up with people telling me to "get used to it." i have things to do, and it's not my job to learn a new set of dog tricks because microsoft is losing market share to tablets. it doesn't even feel like the changes are to my benefit: i'll take live tiles on a phone, but no way do i want them on a desktop. i check facebook maybe twice a month, and i'd rather not be reminded of the stupid site otherwise. this operating system feels like it was written to appeal to 14yo kids that grew up on tablets. the 14yo kids already have ipads, and no need for windows.... meanwhile, like xbox, they've pissed the heck out of their core audience while attempting to court other demographics.

that "search hero" thing looks like bloatware.... total form over function. just what you need when searching for a word doc: a giant flashy picture of some celebrity and a bit of lag as it searches the web whether you like it or not. i guess, like vista, you need a third-party search app for this version of windows.

Is this an improvement? Perhaps. Certainly for those using touchscreens and mobile devices this is an "upgrade." But the fundamental problem with Windows 8.* is that it's a servant trying to serve two masters.

Everyone keeps saying this, and I suppose it may technically be true, but not in any meaningful sense. I've been running 8 since it launched, and I never touch Metro. There's no UI clash, or anything, because I only use the desktop. It's not hard to do, either. It took me literally 10 minutes from first boot to completely excising Metro from my machine, without any "how-to" guides or similar. It's dead simple to do.

To everyone who hates Metro on a desktop: I agree. It's useless. So *just don't use it*. Win8 doesn't force you to, y'know. It's amazing how many people who claim to have used Win8 don't seem to realize that the big button it places on the start screen, by default, that says "Desktop" and that has a picture of your desktop...loads the desktop!

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu.

... for you. To call the classic start menu which covers maybe 10% of the screen "functionally full-screen" is drivel.

There is real value in consistency, even if it's an "advanced option" to re-enable the classic start menu. Some of us have grown accustomed to it over the last 18 years.

My biggest problem with the start screen is keyboard support. I choose items from lists using the keyboard instead of the mouse, which I can do very quickly with a short list of text items that are easy to scan. I can't do the same thing with big blocky icons and large text.

You don't have to accept my reasons for "obsessing" over the classic start -- there are plenty of others. I've found a simple, 3rd-party solution and it's not a problem anymore. Just try not to spout ignorance and single-mindedness as some kind of high ground.

Just a heads-up:There is excellent keyboard support in the windows 8 start-screen:just press the windows button,then the first letter of what you want to launch (add a few if the list is still too large) and you can navigate with the cursor keys, press enter to select your application.Well, you can always naviagate with the cursor keys, but this is real quick.It's worked the same as the windows 7 and vista search field in the old start menu.

To launch notepad, for instance, I press:StartnEnter

That's, super quick. (operation may change if you have an app that starts with an N and comes before notepad)

Took a day to get used to it, but once you're used to it it's not hard to use. The OS itself seems a bit faster than Win 7. I have not done or seen benchmarks so I don't know if that's the case or no.

I have a couple of users here in the office, as most of you do, who are the guinea pig users for how hard it's going to be to shepherd people through an OS change. They dealt with it OK. I think the update will help somewhat.

Now, I'm pointedly not addressing the wisdom of the UI change in the first place. I think that was beyond idiotic and completely unneeded and unnecessary.

That being said, it's not the disaster that it could have been, but it sure as hell wasn't needed. Users don't use phones or tablets in the same way as a desktop. Why try to make them?

If you like the Modern UI Start, that's fine! Nobody wants to take that away from you.

The reality is that a lot of users, especially IT groups, let alone the end users, don't like it.

Windows 8 simply doesn't offer enough to make the upgrade worthwhile.

I actually do like Server 2012. I just don't care at all for the UI. It makes no sense for a server to be geared towards touchscreens, and doesn't add anything to the functionality.

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu. What do you need from the Menu that isn't offered by the Screen? What exactly is so holy about the old Menu? That it's not full screen? Well, it functionally is because removing focus from it closes it, so you can't interact with anything when it's open any way.

I would say there is a pretty huge new difference now, in that newly installed apps don't appear in the Start screen at all. You have to discover the All Apps screen (which is slightly easier than it was before) and find them there.

Because you can't see the Start screen and the All Apps screen at the same time, instead of, say, dragging apps from All Apps to the Start screen, you have to pin the app in the All Apps screen, then go to the Start screen and find the new tile and move it. So to get something into the Start screen, you have to do a visual search twice.

Nothing you install in Windows 7 gets automatically pinned to the Start Menu either (and then the room you have to pin items there is tiny).

I don't get this obsession over the classic Start Menu. With 8.1, there's no functional difference between the Start Screen and the Menu.

... for you. To call the classic start menu which covers maybe 10% of the screen "functionally full-screen" is drivel.

There is real value in consistency, even if it's an "advanced option" to re-enable the classic start menu. Some of us have grown accustomed to it over the last 18 years.

My biggest problem with the start screen is keyboard support. I choose items from lists using the keyboard instead of the mouse, which I can do very quickly with a short list of text items that are easy to scan. I can't do the same thing with big blocky icons and large text.

You don't have to accept my reasons for "obsessing" over the classic start -- there are plenty of others. I've found a simple, 3rd-party solution and it's not a problem anymore. Just try not to spout ignorance and single-mindedness as some kind of high ground.

The fact that it takes up more space also allows it to use more space. The Start Screen can show more results and space them better, making it easier on the eyes for me. The fact that it obscures the desktop programs is just a huge non-issue to me since if I'm using the Start Menu/Screen, it's what I focus on and look at anyway. And it's not like using it entails looking at it for 10 minutes, it's hitting Windows key + typing + making sure the right item is selected + Enter.

Just like you don't like being told what to use, I don't like being told that I'm stupid for enjoying the new interface. There's tangible benefits to the new interface, even for a desktop user. Searching for files in the Windows 7 interface is pretty bad, it works well for programs with unique names, but there's just not a lot of room for file results. Then you have to click on 'more results' in the Menu and then it opens an explorer window which does the search all over again. It's slow.

There is real value in consistency, even if it's an "advanced option" to re-enable the classic start menu. Some of us have grown accustomed to it over the last 18 years

Bullshit, the "Classic Start Menu" is this:

Which was removed already, in Windows 7, also to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Yet somehow, that Start Menu is now "the one true start menu" even though it's only been around since Vista, which means at best you've been using the following stat menu and its workflow for 6 years, and far more likely only 3-4, with Windows 7:

So don't give me that "consistency" stuff, the Start Menu as you think of it is far newer than your "18 year workflow", and you've already adapted to numerous major changes to it throughout the years.

And if you remember the Classic start menu, if you had any real volume of programs installed, it really was a full-screen app, as the menus would cover your entire monitor.

To everyone who hates Metro on a desktop: I agree. It's useless. So *just don't use it*. Win8 doesn't force you to, y'know. It's amazing how many people who claim to have used Win8 don't seem to realize that the big button it places on the start screen, by default, that says "Desktop" and that has a picture of your desktop...loads the desktop!

Oh, I did all that too - and at least in 8.1 people can boot straight to the desktop, but the point stands that you *have* to do all those steps to disable Metro apps from being the default. And that Metro sensibility isn't just in the apps, but in the OS interface itself (however unevenly it's been applied).

Wouldn't it have been much simpler to, at setup, have a screen that asked "Do you want the touch-enabled UI or the keyboard/mouse UI" and go on from there? Then there wouldn't be awkward OS dialogs about "touching" a part of the interface when using a mouse/keyboard, and the interface cues from OS could be arranged for what works best for *you* rather than what some random developer in Redmond *thinks* you should be doing.

With Windows 8, Microsoft made some bold moves in interface design (some of which worked, many of which didn't) when what they should have focused on was a robust, flexible interface that could be configured based on device & user preference. 8.1 fixes some of this, but in my view, it's just turning a turd into a very highly-polished turd -- which is a shame. Other than the interface, the OS itself is very solid.

Just like you don't like being told what to use, I don't like being told that I'm stupid for enjoying the new interface.

I don't know of anyone who's saying that anyone is stupid for enjoying the new interface.

What we're pissed about is that microsoft made the choice to force it on those of us who don't want it. there was a registry key in Win8 Dev Preview, that brought back the Win7 interface. they already had it. it would be simplicity itsself to give us what we want and please EVERYONE.

The only really bad thing about the Windows 8 UI changes (and which makes Windows 8 hard to defend because of how silly it is) is the way you turn off your PC. It's really indefensible that that's now hidden under Charms > Settings. I even get why it makes sense for mobile users, since you rarely turn off a mobile device and when you do, you use the power button, but for desktop users doing it through software is the normal way and hiding it behind a mouse gesture plus several clicks is just bad. I'll definitely admit that and that Windows 8 is a flawed first step towards a "new" Windows, it's just the whole sudden reverence of the Holy Glorious Start Menu as if it was the Messiah of UX design that bothers me. Especially when the new interface offers exactly the same features, with the trade-off that it takes up more space, but with the added benefit that it can use more space. This whole outrage over wanting the old Start Menu back is what happened going from XP > Vista, even though overall it was a huge improvement. The improvement isn't that big compared to that, for desktop users anyway, but it's not a step back either.

Just like you don't like being told what to use, I don't like being told that I'm stupid for enjoying the new interface.

I don't know of anyone who's saying that anyone is stupid for enjoying the new interface.

What we're pissed about is that microsoft made the choice to force it on those of us who don't want it. there was a registry key in Win8 Dev Preview, that brought back the Win7 interface. they already had it. it would be simplicity itsself to give us what we want and please EVERYONE.

they refuse to.

THAT is what's stupid.

Install Start8. Microsoft doesn't force anything on the desktop. They just ship it like they hope most will like it. The desktop is not a walled garden, you can change things.

Just a heads-up:There is excellent keyboard support in the windows 8 start-screen:just press the windows button,then the first letter of what you want to launch (add a few if the list is still too large) and you can navigate with the cursor keys, press enter to select your application.Well, you can always naviagate with the cursor keys, but this is real quick.It's worked the same as the windows 7 and vista search field in the old start menu.

[...]

Yep! I use this. The problem comes when you don't know or can't remember the name of a program. Finding something in a list is much more difficult using the new "all apps" screen, and I don't think it's just a matter of adjusting to it.

Install Start8. Microsoft doesn't force anything on the desktop. They just ship it like they hope most will like it. The desktop is not a walled garden, you can change things.

Hmm, why did we have to depend on a third party program when MS could have just given us the users a choice?The fact that you have to change the desktop to suit you by using a third party program, is already sign of that MS did not anticipate the weakness of it's Metro approach.

You can now shutdown in less than 4 steps using something called a "Charm". Huge improvement.Judging by the list of Windows 8.1 improvements, Windows 8 is an absolute turd. No wonder despite what the MS faithful thought, firing Steven 'mini Jobs' Sinofsky was the right move.

Shutdown and associated commands should be root options in the start menu/screen. They should not be hackjobbed in as "charms" or behind other elements.

This is a pretty unusual view of mine, and it seems Microsoft is with me on this, but I disagree. The menu-based shutdown (whichever OS you use) is useful for non-standard shutdowns (when, at some point, you want to shutdown as opposed to sleep), but for me, as long as you've set up Power Options so that your computer's physical power button does what you want it to do (something many users don't really need to bother with), it's a much more convenient method. And semantically, it's much more fitting considering that's what you used to turn on the computer. I also think it fits better with the many handheld devices like phones and tablets that have a "sleep" button, while turning off said devices -completely- involves some small usability complications, to ensure people don't shut down their phones just by tapping the wrong button.

It also helps that Windows has almost completely lost its dependency on daily restarts reminiscent of the 95/XP days ("It is now safe to shut off your computer."). I kind of wonder if a lot of users are just half-stuck in the old mindset of telling the software to shut down, instead of switching the hardware to "off" the way we do most of our other appliances.